July 30, 2009

Traveled north yesterday to attend a meeting of the Southern Oregon Renewable Energy group that is being led by Oregon Solutions. This meeting has been attended by county commissioners and other local leaders who are looking at a regional strategy to address the issue of energy independence. The meeting is at noon today - one of the topics on the agenda is a coordinated education effort. The plan is to have one high school in each county do an energy audit.

Of course - energy distribution does not act all like what people think. Even though we have inexpensive hydroelectric power here in the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Power pumps energy here via the grid from the coal burning plants in Montana. Our cheaper power is sold to California to keep up the profit margins. A concept called net metering allows personal generation of power to offset consumption, but the utility retains the rights to any excess power generated. There is a somewhat expensive process to allow industrial engineers to investigate system that actually sell power to the grid if you can generate a reliable load for a long period of time. Essentially, the system is stacked in favor of the local monopoly (with franchises assigned to ensure non-competition).

Perhaps the real solution to the energy crisis is not to generate more electricity, but to increase the efficiency of energy use. Better capacitors and batteries could be designed to allow the electrons to be stored and used on demand. A new nationwide grid can be build to distribute this energy - although it should consist of autonomous local units that can connect or detach depending on regional circumstance. There are many options - solar, wind, ocean current, bio-mass. If there is interest, mebbe we can delve deeper in a your classroom environment.

The one major transformation that i can envision is an individual portable energy box that can generate enough power to provide a mobile outlet. A single unit that can capture sunlight, wind or water flow, or just excess heat and reflect it back as electrical current. We already an draw current off a car battery through the cigarette lighter - it shouldn't be difficult to imagine a magic generator box attuned to non-combustible alternatives.

July 28, 2009

Sometimes the flow channels through too fast and i am lucky to get the words down as rapidly as the mind sends the information along. The interpretation of what is being written is left to the reader. Wrote that about an hour ago - mind really drifted off. Here is where I was going.

How do you do business when the focus of the business is not the focus of the game? Take the simple steps necessary to rebuild a business – the business of learning.

Observation is the key to learning. When you start looking for some things, it is just as important to not see some other things. Frame of mind is so important to the equilibration of everyday focus. Good and Bad are traits that we assign due to our value judgments that we have adopted from the ‘things we know work’ checklist that we keep in the backs of our brains. Memory and mind control provide keys – we have to be able to turn off the distractions when we wish to get deep into a thought pattern.

Space is where you go – there seems to be a quadrant here that evokes empathy to the other living beings that share in our space on a multitude of scales. The time frame is now – what we do today affects our tomorrow, and if my theory is correct, our yesterday also. The principals can change pathways that end without my involvement when they write the future histories.

Took the time to discuss this philosophy with the writer dude. He suggested to write down the context similar to the spoken language – get it into a form for readership. Films are fine, but understanding is when you can put the words together in the proper form. Love Minding. Idea Creating. Water Streaming. Take simple effects and build upon their nature. Develop school of thought to think about the cyclical state of affairs and the perpendicular nature of symmetry. When the yin balances the yang, you see neither yin nor yang.

The DNA strands of Matter and Energy are near the ends of the reader – the Spirit strand is waiting to partner with one set or the other. Gaia is ready to birth twins, so the loser of the genetic game will be enrapt with another orthogonal tapestry to create a different timeline. Our world has five counterparts – places where you in your unconscious mind follow the pattern of destiny as lemmings, set by the main story timeline – and one where you are fully cognitive, living and breathing. Our job is to create a pathway that leads to change for the better in the mainstream pipeline of history. The group that we hang with becomes our support system for barter exchange of goods and services – creating a new value system that respects what we truly value.

The new system must first work on an individual basis – you choose the type of work that you do and help determine the relative value of your time compared to other people’s time. One hour is one hour for everybody – it depends on how you fill your hours as to how much time the hours are actually worth. The level of the system is set by the value of the hour in the medium of exchange.

What other items are bankable? Precious metals, gemstones, artwork, machinery and equipment, tools, food and clothing, seeds. The largest common group is the community that you live within – the people that you hang with and circulate within the group. Land can be shared and overlap – depends on the ownership criteria – the current system ownership criteria is banks own everything – pay them for allowing you life. Our reality is that Gaia is – and we are but part of an organism that functions on multiple levels. When some natural system somewhere is out of kilter, we feel the effects on our level of scale.

The game also needs to work on a community basis. The group of people within the community work together for the common good of all. This means having a consensus type system where we agree to create a common system of support – some products goods or services that can be traded with other communities to further everybody’s existence. The Mondragon Cooperative Concept will be explained in a future article. This new form is something that will place everybody onto the same steep learning curve, with self-assembly required.

July 27, 2009

Published an article on micro-nutrient enhancement for carbon sequestration at the Existence site. There seem to be a number of areas where application of science can change the current picture of how things are done. I get the impression that change is not something that most people are comfortable doing. Thus we dig deeper holes that we may have to climb out from later.

The many facets of water is another area that is key to our understanding of natural process. Dr. Lenny will be doing a skill-share at the Peace Village Festival on this topic. Understanding how the water cycle works to keep fresh, clean water circulating is one way that we can become involved with nature.

That clear stuff coming out from the tap contains lots of things that you may not wish to drink - but you literally have no choice. A good airing will allow the residual chlorine to evaporate off, but there are still detectable traces of many other constituents that municipal water systems do not remove. The skill-share will feature a look at several different types of water, comparing and contrasting the water quality and availability for use.

July 24, 2009

'What is wrong is when such a restrictive, instrumental goal becomes the only standard for defining the purpose of education. This is not merely a civically deprived vision of education, it is a dangerously narrow one as well.'

'We need a new language to define the meaning and purpose of public and higher education, one that makes democracy its defining principle of both learning and everyday classroom practices. 'Education is an area where the current system is completely lost. Henry Giroux takes the time to describe his vision of what needs to be done at the federal level. Dr. Lenny disagrees entirely with the concept that the federal level should have anything to do with education. The idea that 'democracy' is the ultimate aim of the education system is complete rubbish.

IMHO self-empowerment and the ability to act as a sovereign person, with rights and responsibilities should be the goal of modern education. Having said that, Dr. Lenny is impressed by the quality of thought behind the litany of the current problems of the system. The protectionism embedded in teacher's unions is of course not mentioned. The real problem with public education is that the word public does not mean government.

July 23, 2009

I was gonna blog about something negative and my mind said - stop doing that. We should reflect the light that we wish to emit, with new friends like white spectral wind. The world has a peace about it that reflects new alignments - today is dominated by the solar eclipse over India. Breathe in deep the fresh air carried by a surprisingly strong breeze. Enjoy a glass of water, perhaps with a twist of lime.

Today is a love powering day in my 294th year of the 64-day treei calendar. Do: Love Powering was the gold card in my personal secretum gaudi. For me - love is sharing wisdom as we seek truth and gain knowledge. I have been lax in consulting the sacred geometry oracle deck - recently i drew the flower of life card in a single card reading. Each of us reflects our current belief system : it should emit harmony, peace and joy if our radiant modes are well attuned. I have a 17-breath Merkaba meditation that i like to do to ground my spiritual perspective. It creates harmony within my spheres.

Visit the peace portal. Spirituality and Science both have roles to play in the times that are ahead.

July 22, 2009

Living in Western Oregon as a naturalist and being a conscious resident of Gaia, Dr. Lenny was opposed to the Western Oregon Plan Revision proposed by the Bureau of Land Management. As an officer in a local watershed council, I have worked with the people in the BLM collecting data and helping assess the value of proposed forest projects. Michael Donnelly is right-on in his picture of what is going on in the intricate dance between corporate green, corporate timber extraction and the federal government.

The problems are a bit more intricate than what they seem. The standard approach to fire suppression is still the 1950's Smokey the Bear model - stamp howdt every fire. This level of fire suppression has meant that only large burns that get away really get to burn (ie the 2002 Apple Fire). Small fires that would have cleared the fuel loads from under the big trees never came through. Quite often, back-burns that eat more of the forest than the lightening strikes.

What is necessary is a different perspective to community forestry. Instead of managing on a national scale, these resources should be managed within community on a local scale. A broad band on individual stakeholders can be assembled to work on a consensus basis. There is an incredible fuel load on western forest that could be used as biomass - you would not have to remove a single live tree.

One plan to create mobile biomass power generators that can convert waste into chips that can be pyrolyzed to oil or sprayed back onto the forest floor is one of the small local solutions. A portion of the carbon load has to be returned to the forest floor to keep the soil base stable - the carbon in the trees themselves comes from carbon dioxide in the air. Another option would be to build lots of small ponds and wetlands to keep water available to the land deeper into the summer. These wet areas have the added feature of creating more clean fresh water - one of the major benefits of more healthy ecosystems.

Dr. Lenny will be preparing a class on Carbon - focusing on sequestration efforts in light of the new national focus on cap and trade carbon politics. The current system appears to be a large scam based on the economic powerhouse called the Chicago Climate Exchange - a product of the bankrupt but bailed-howdt finance industry, big industry and regional governments get to trade carbon credits with no link to physical reality. It is time to change that paradigm, by getting involved on a local scale.

The next Oregon Solutions - So. Oregon Renewable Energy Project Meeting in Roseburg on Thursday July 30, 2009 from 12noon - 3pm. The meeting will be held in Room 310 of the Roseburg Courthouse at 1036 SE Douglas, Roseburg OR 97470.

July 19, 2009

Relaxing on the porch watching water rainbows emanating from the sprinkler system. The sun coming in from over my left shoulder catches the spray and illuminates pinnacles of colored shards that twinkle through every color in the spectrum. The lawn is pleased to be a recipient of the shower - the biodiversity of the weed constituents is quite amazing.

What does it mean when a scientist describes a model system for some natural phenomena? Generally, a good model of natural process should be able to go backwards to duplicate the historical record, before it can be used forwards in a predictive manner. The major variables are identified and trends correlated with actual conditions. Models attempt to take into account all things relevant to the whole.

One of the major problems with most models is blindness to changing conditions. In order to be simple conceptually, they weigh factors that have more quantity (mass) more heavily than items that are light and effervescent. Detection limits to measurement ensure that we can only go down to certain scales with carefully constructed detailed measurement. In chemistry - X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy allow chemists to look out at the atomic level. We take for granted that the materials that are here now are in the form that they have always been - that is not a valid assumption!

The climate change models are all over the place. Atmospheric chemistry is affected by water vapor more than any other component, yet most climate models have trouble recognizing that fact. Carbon Dioxide is a good indicator of climate warming, yet it is not the cause that makes the effect. If we sequester the carbon dioxide (as plants do), then the warming will still exist. However as other factors change, people will learn to adapt to the new climate conditions. Always have, always will.

One of the missing concepts in current climate models has to do with the point of nucleation of a new phenomena. All change has a specific trigger point - an action that altered the reality of a situation and led to a behavior that is different from prior actions. Essentially, every so often an old dog learns a new trick. Somebody identifies a new factor that hasn't been there prior to the observation. Isn't it funny how that works, when a new novel happening takes hold an changes the projection angle. It's like watching rainbows dart on falling water.

July 18, 2009

I was responding to a Pint of Stout at Sunni's website when i drifted off onto a new thought pattern. Rather than take up her space, i decided to occupy my own space - which is where people should be taking care of their business anyway.

Progress is one of those difficult terms that everybody has a definition that they assume is common to others, but we rarely bother to check with each other. It is almost as bad as the word 'community' - which i parlay around in circles with a lot. Pro is the opposite of con, so progress is the opposite of congress. With health care reform and senora Sotomayor, my head is definitely not pointed in that direction.

Things are changing rapidly - at a personal level we all need to define progress in terms of ourselves, our families (extended), our colleagues and co-workers, and the larger community that we work within before we start setting guidelines for everybody else. Gurdjieff and Ospensky had the concept of three lines of flow - where two were engaged at any given time. The three spheres in the Fourth Way are self, larger community and school of thought.

School is something we no longer even think about. It is a function of life that has been taken howdt of our hands and turned over to a monopolar entity that is too large to wrap our hands around. The life skills that are currently necessary are very different than the life skills that will be required five years from now. It is up to us to change the framework of how we operate in life. Creating a school of thought that is howdtside the realm of the current reality is my current goal. It has to be a fractal of the life we lead now - with significant changes in certain areas.

To join my quest - start looking at some of the links off this page. Building community in my personal space means relating one-on-one to the individuals that i connect with. The bloggosphere is an extension of real life into a virtual realm - there is no pathway that brings the virtual realm back into reality. Yet!

The social networks that we currently have are dominated by high profile facebooks and twitters - but the real wealth comes from finding a little niche and sharing what you like best with other co-creative persons. Self-assembly and tracking information are two of the keys, but how it will work does not have to be predefined (unless we need to sell the business plan to some investor - definitely an old construct that we don't need to have in our world (or do we)).

I wish to start a bank and to have access to the money system rules that the bankers have. I don't need billions to bail me howdt - a couple hundred thousand would go a long way. But there has to be a better medium of exchange. Fractional reserve currency dynamics sound great - let me bank a silver piece and get 40 times that value to pass howdt interest bearing loans. We need a different concept of bank. A Bank & Trust should be a community asset developer.

If you like where this is going - come visit Existence. Post a response here and we'll develop a grid that connects my reality into your reality. The idea is to be howdt there far enough to nucleate communities of different approaches to common problems and to collect good data to measure what works. Chaos dissolves into orders that are readily apparent from the perspective of the chaos. Imposed pre-order does not work any longer - let's explore doing it differently.

July 17, 2009

The time for cross generational reflection has reached us. Fievel at And Then Bam... shares his experience as a 20 something observing the events at the 2009 Oregon Green Expo. He recorded some of his observations, including a 6 minute observation by Dr. Lenny on evolving education. There are many ways of addressing change - the time has come to reevaluate what we know in terms of how it really works.

July 16, 2009

Rather than dwelling on the negative, we keep balance by accentuating the positive. Algae technology is moving along as a means of transformation of carbon dioxide into living matter. Dr. Lenny posted a similar video from a biotech start-up Valcent six months ago. The Universal Sovereigns of a Living Earth Stewardship Plan includes growing algae in ponds all over then landscape, while storing water for fire suppression on arid summer forest lands.

Existence is a portal setting where topics of applied natural resource science can be built into a framework of a learning environment delivered as a applied role-playing game. Graphic interface programs are available to create avatars and measuring tools, but the story line for each game is a hero quest that deals with natural resource issues by taking virtual action with a small cast of characters. Characters increase luminosity within a node field by taking action that can be validated on a technical scale at a later point in time.

No telling where this will go. I'll be checking out some other net game forms to see what can be done. I want a unique sense for a game that rewards individual action in a consensus environment that thinks up outside the box solutions. Like growing algae for carbon capture. Another by-product of the process would be fertilizer. A third is clean water.

July 15, 2009

' In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world's biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. '

The question of food security arises in a myriad of forms. When I consider the issues, I not only look at the quantity, but also the quality. The referenced article describes a distinct move backwards, away from food quality based on the fear factor. The money that is going to rip the organic gardens off the landscape is money tossed to the mass flow of the hungry monetary system. We need to be building ponds and installing wetlands - providing a high nutrient environment.

If we were to take up this practice, we would not have a garden at all.

July 11, 2009

We all live in our own little worlds, resonating with a spin state that sometimes intersects common reality. The comprehension of how the concept of scale works can affect actions that impact your future reality. Each person's reality functions on a set of community values that are held in common within the realm of friendship, levels of trust that you develop in personal, business and professional spheres.

The idea of behavior on a 'national' sphere is incomprehensible to me as an individual developing a novel community thought paradigm. What works on adjacent scales is necessarily continuous, and must be explained in terms of the scale we are on. Social currency is a means of getting relatively even exchange between scales that don't necessarily value the same things.

Sometimes we hear what we expect to hear and not what the other person is saying. Community has to work for each individual, else they will go somewhere else. The options are being redefined as we transcend an old way of life for a fractal form of what we have had. Order and chaos resonate in the same field - too much order works out just as bad as too much chaos.

Rather than solve all the imaginary problems of the world at once, we should focus on evaluating the real situation in terms of what we have and in terms of what we wish to have. Guidelines for acceptable behavior are changing to fit different circumstances. Frustration mounts as the processes start consuming the focus of our attention. There is no 'there' there. We are here in a world where the game is changing. Let's take the time to figure out what it is that we really want on the scales we choose to deal upon.

July 09, 2009

Ruminating on life while setting on the porch in mid-afternoon. Contemplating the development of social networks - the virtual phenomenon that has arisen since my internet sabbatical began. The basis of relationships now depends on common cause - the adhesion between people can be considered a bonding energy. The network clicks when individuals share common experience - the type of activity is readily monitored by the stream of flow of connectivity. Everybody gets to know what everybody else is doing in the great soap opera model of life.

Bond Energy is a key construct when you think about the significance of attraction. In molecular chemistry, the bond energy is stored between the atoms sharing bonds in proportion to their relative distance from each other, factored by the nature of the elements involved. Very stable chemical relationships form when larger biological structures start using small molecules for metabolism - a process of unleashing energy stored in food stuffs. The excess energy that is not used is stored in the chemical bonds for future use.

The new communities rely on information - and virtual is now a means of connecting small groups for very specific information transfer. Youth have the ability to sponge up information on a topic and integrate it into their actions and talk. They mirror the media that they relate to, and wish to have a voice in the action. We can influence them by listening to what they have to say, and them connecting them to the people who know something about their field of interest. To learn, one must teach. To teach effectively, one must learn.

As we build people, stable relationships will form between individuals that can amplify each others talents. Enjoy the people around you and try to group in tetrahedral, octahedral and other geometric stable forms. Nature's geometry plays with us in a golden mean ratio fractal world. As we adapt to nature, we will evolve new manners to equalize to a mean average. The answers to solving the current glitch in the system is to take the time to dream about your vision of how it should be, then make it happen virtually and in reality.

July 06, 2009

A friend of mine has started putting her opinions out to the network of bloggers. This articleprovides a good beginning. The time has come to change the manner that we approach life. It is no longer okay to just continue to maintain. Figure howdt what it is that you want to be doing and get started on doing it. The infrastructure is going, going, gone. Get your home run the way you want to run it.

July 03, 2009

If you are looking for different options of what to do on July 4th weekend, come check howdt the 2009 Oregon Green Expo. There will be about three dozen booths and many speakers, panel discussions and things to do. Dr. Lenny will be volunteering with the film crew. The photo features an electric car and a Pacific Dome.